


The Journal of Henna Reaid

by Sandel



Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-12
Updated: 2014-09-14
Packaged: 2018-02-17 03:49:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2295617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandel/pseuds/Sandel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><div class="center">
  <p>A would be Queen's Rider is sent to the Royal University to learn to control her magic. There she meets Thom of Pirate's Swoop and his group of friends. This is her journal.</p>
  <p>Set during or after Lady Knight, depending on where the missing year in Squire fits in. Definitely set before Trickster's Choice, at least.</p>
</div>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rejected

**March 19th, 461**

Them cursed Riders wouldn’t take me!

I know my letters as anyone reading this can tell, and I’ve known my numbers even longer, merchant’s mot that I am. My age’s not at fault either. I completed my fifteenth year three moons ago. I have no husband or little ones hidden away either. I even brought my own pony! And still they won’t have me.

They won’t take me cause of my so called “Gift”, and they told me so plain. And here everyone tells me that the Riders _want_ mages. Every time something goes from gold to copper in my life it’s the Gift that’s to blame! It’s a Curse more like it.

That Evin Larse said I could join once I learn to “control” it. Control it! What does he know ‘bout control? I didn’t set his tent on fire or anything, did I? I told him I’d be happy to get regular Rider training without the magics, but he said it wouldn’t do, because I’d “always be a danger to your group”. Like I’m some rabid animal.

So now me and Monday are off to the Royal University outside Corus. It’s a good thing it’s close by, because my poor hardy Monday must be tired from carrying me all the way from Giant’s Cradle.

* * *

**Later the same night**

I’ve clamed down some. I should write something more intelligible.

My name is Henna Reaid. I’m fifteen years old. I want to join the Queen’s Riders. I got this book to write down important things from Rider training, but now I might as well use it for whatever.

I have a pony named Monday. She’s a sorrel. She’s my only friend in the world right now. Now I’ll go cry myself to sleep into her coat.

Mayhaps I’ll write more later.

Good night!

 


	2. A New Friend

**March 20th, 461**

I am at the Royal University now. It was not hard to find. It’s as big and grand a building as ever there was. So very many towers, as mages are wont to have. It’s almost as grand as the palace. I hate it here.

I think I’ve made a friend, though. First everyone was rude to me. The hostlers wouldn’t let me care for Monday myself, and the clerks laughed at me. Maybe they’re not called clerks. I don’t care. There were two of them, behind a huge marble desk in the entrance hall. When I went up and handed them the scroll from assistant commander Larse they looked me over all judging like.

I was all polite, though. The male clerk asked my name, and I said “Henna Reaid, as you please”. So you don’t have to worry about my manners if you’re reading this. You’d do better to worry about _his_ manners. He had a great big book where he wrote down who came and went, I think, so he asked “What spelling of ‘Reed’ is that?” and I had to answer even though he could have looked at the scroll just as easy.

And then he laughed at me, the great sack of gnarly roots. “Did your ancestors think the name’d turn noble if they crammed as many letters into it as they could?” he asked. That made the girl clerk laugh, and some other people who were in the hall too, reading and such. I went red all over then, I could feel it. But I didn’t say nothing. I just answered the rest of their questions as quick as I could.

Now I’ve written myself all angry again. Ma always says I don’t have enough manners to work the shop. Apparently I have more than what’s needed to be some mage clerk behind a marble desk!

Anyway, they kept the paper from the Riders, but they gave me a bunch of other ones, and a key with the number 511 on it. When I walked away from the desk a man came up to me all casual like and asked if I’d let him show me to my room. It was obvious as a gold coin among coppers that he was a noble of some sort, but I really needed the help so I said yes.

“It was wrong of Lessa and Merrill to laugh at you,” he said. (That’s the clerks’ names, you see.) “Especially Merrill. With that many ‘R’s and ‘L’s in his name he shouldn’t throw any stones.”

That made me laugh. He was very funny. It didn’t take very long for him to find my room, but he’d time to make me laugh three times more. He has the weirdest laugh. I can’t describe it. It’s very quiet and husky and it sounds serious. Serious!? It looks weird just typing it. A laugh can’t be serious, can it? But it’s… sombre, like. If you heard it you’d understand.

His name is Thom of Pirate’s Swoop, but he asked me to just call him Thom. He says everyone’s equal here at the University. I doubt that, but I’ll call him Thom if he likes. He asked if my name was Gallan, so he must have noticed my accent. My mother was Gallan, and our family makes our biggest profits at the market in Cría each year, but I’m Tortallan, proud and true. Elsewise I wouldn’t want to join the Riders, would I?

I didn’t tell him that, though. I told him the story about my name instead. It comes from my hair. My family trades in dyes, among other things. Henna’s an herb that makes red in cloth or hair or on skin. When I was born I had a full head of hair that looked like it’d been coloured with henna, so that’s what my father called me. My hair’s mellowed out when I’ve gotten older, though. Now it’s more auburn in colour.

By the time I finished telling Thom about my hair we were already at door 511. He told me I should come to him if anyone bothers me again. “Us redheads should stick together,” he said.

That reminds me I should write a bit about how he looks. He’s red hair, of course, or he wouldn’t have said that. He wears it long, so he looks like a mage from a story. His eyes are green-brown. I’d guess he’s a few years older than me, seventeen or so. He wore the same grey robe as all other students I saw. I wonder if they’ll make me wear one of those as well. That’d make my siblings laugh if they saw it!

The thing that made me guess he’s a noble was all the finery he was wearing. He had gold rings in his ears and on his fingers (with green and red stones in them) and he wore a huge purple garnet stone in a chain around his neck. Even his hair was tied with gold thread!

I just heard the bell chime for dinner. I should go down. Thom told me I could sit with him and his friends in the mess hall.


End file.
